New Plans to Develop Cordova Bay Plaza
by Roger Stonebanks, citizen reporter
A community information meeting will be held on Thursday Sept. 21 to disclose revised plans for a new commercial-residential development on the Cordova Bay Plaza site.
A notice from Kang and Gill Construction states that it “is proposed to construct three, mixed use condominium buildings” on the site of the plaza strip mall at Cordova Bay Road and Doumac Avenue that was built in 1960. Only one business, Scotiabank, remains open in the plaza and it will close shortly.
Kang and Gill did not disclose details of the revised plans that were made public a year ago by architect Alan Lowe and James Gardiner, who holds an option to purchase the property from Your Family Food Mart. Kang and Gill Construction was formed in 1989 by Tejbir Kang and Amarjit Gill.
Lowe, contacted by Saanich Voice Online (SVO), declined to disclose details ahead of the public meeting.
Larry Gontovnick, president of Cordova Bay Association for Community Affairs, told SVO that the revised plans have not been shared with the association. The CBA opposed the earlier plans – “In summary, the current over-all feel is more urban shopping centre than village plaza,” Gontovnick said last spring. The earlier plans had two of the three proposed buildings at four storeys with a supermarket more than twice the size of the plaza one, some shops and bank, and 86 condominiums.
The information meeting will be held at Claremont Secondary School-Ridge Theatre, 4980 Wesley Road, starting at 7 p.m.
Redevelopment will require Saanich council approval for an amendment to the Development Permit issued in 1999 for a plan then to redevelop the site. The 1999 proposal never went ahead because of underground gasoline leakage (later remediated) from a closed service station on another property.
For the last SVO story click HERE.
I simply cannot stress enough that Bruce Nichol is right on the ball and so are some in Saanich Planning. The big danger is no one looks at the local government laws in enough detail and with correct understanding.
Even at the opening of a Public Hearing two weeks ago, into a new zone being proposed for two single family lots on Doumac, in this same Cordova Bay Village, Councillor Plant thoughtfully questioned whether this proposed zone was in fact a big enough change to trigger an amendment to the OCP. Well actually we all know the answer to that, and it is yes – it is a huge change.
That’s not the answer that is on the record from that Public Hearing.
Similarly, none of the Lowe, Kang, Gill, Gardiner proposal brought back out for another run, fits the OCP. However, everyone gets bluffed into believing differently. For some it may be convenient, and that seems to include Alan Lowe, a former Mayor himself and a long time local architect who surely knows how to read a local government law. The proponents on the Cordova Village figure they are above the 2008 Official Community Plan that is the law. Instead they can carry on with a 1962 law and suggest it is fully in force and certainly is not varied by a new law that is 46 years newer and carries the weight of a massive consultation process with the clearest possible future of getting matters laid out for the future.
What was quite probably a nice scheme now 55 years ago can hardly be dusted off and suggested as suitable in any way for now.
Let us liven up this debate. Obviously in 1962 when the lands received their zoning, this was a completely different place, and the zoning fitted its use. Or in the mid-90’s, the Peng Brothers, understood the words in the Cordova Bay Village Development Permit guidelines which had only just been written. They knew the old zoning was out of date. They proposed a modest Shopping area, with some residential with an acceptance that the old zone was no longer valid, and However, for anyone to assume that another 20 yrs later the shopping centre zone was now somehow back in fashion and the Guidelines were irrelevant is beyond common sense and in the realms of make believe.
Sorry folks, let’s work towards a real and well planned Cordova Bay Village.
Thanks.